Musée de la Mémoire ‘PROPRIÉTÉ UNIVERSELLE’ ®

This artist's book, a catalogue of a museum without walls, reads like an account of a work under construction in response to a commission in a former coalfield. Joëlle Tuerlinckx guides us through the studio’s archives, and through the development of a thought process and culminates in the inventory of the M.M. collection (‘Musée de la Mémoire’ or ‘Museum of Memory’). Building on the great classic of the inventory catalogue and encompassing 'all of J.T.'s work', she presents 'a museum in itself'. While the book is originally connected to 'La Triangulaire de Cransac', a monumental work of art in the small town of Aveyron, France, it also puts into perspective the evolution of the museum in its relationship with the artist and the book. Joëlle Tuerlinckx reminds us that if the museum is compared to a book because of its internal organisation, then a book can be compared to a museum because of its systematics and its method of contemplating the object.

Text in French. Introduction and colophon translated into English.

Joëlle Tuerlinckx (°1958) studied at the ERG - École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels, where she also taught. In 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Architecture and Art at Hasselt University. Since the late 1980s, Tuerlinckx’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at DIA Art Foundation, New York (2018), Kunstmuseum Basel/Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2016), Haus der Kunst, Munich, Arnolfini, Bristol and WIELS, Brussels (2012-13), Reina Sofía, Madrid (2009), MAMCO - Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2007), The Drawing Center, New York (2006), The Power Plant, Toronto (2005), The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2003). She has participated in Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017), Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg (2014), documenta 11, Kassel (2002). Her work can be found in private and public collections such as the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, FNAC Paris, Generali Foundation,/Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, MoMA, New York, Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.